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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576358">Ego Mentitus de Cete; alternatively, WHALESONG; alternatively, friendsim bullshit</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/500shadesofblue/pseuds/500shadesofblue'>500shadesofblue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hiveswap, Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alien Culture, Alien Hot Dogs, Because I Love It That Much, Crying, Essentially An Entire Hiveswap: Friendsim rewrite, Excessive Violence, F/F, F/M, Hiveswap: Friendsim, M/M, Multi, Or Rather Immersive Situations + Hiveswap: Friendsim Canon, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prose So Purple It's Almost Indigo, Stream of Consciousness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:41:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,028</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576358</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/500shadesofblue/pseuds/500shadesofblue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't know what's going to come out of me," I told her. "It has to be perfect. It has to be irreproachable in every way."<br/>

"Why?" she said.<br/>

"To make up for it," I said. "To make up for the fact that it's me."<br/>

<em>-Ugly, Bitter, and True - Suzanne Rivecca</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Basically: How many mistakes can one person make, honestly.<br/>
Or: The Reader learns to lie.<br/>
Or: Lots of hot takes on troll culture, physiology, and behavior.<br/>
Or: How to die on Alternia.<br/>
Or: A Hiveswap: Friendsim remix, borrowing heavily from canonical content.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, To Be Added as They Occur - and They Will Occur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 0: Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>children, wake up<br/>hold your mistake up<br/>before they turn the summer into dust<br/>(if the children don’t grow up<br/>our bodies get bigger, but our hearts get torn up<br/>we’re just a million little gods causing rain storms<br/>turning every good thing to rust)<br/>I guess we’ll just have to adjust</p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>READER: =&gt; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhXHBFIXqrE">[wake up.]</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>(See <em>end of chapter notes</em> for a list of triggers.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Tell me about a complicated man.</p>
<p>Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost</p>
<p>when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,</p>
<p>and where he went, and who he met, the pain</p>
<p>he suffered in the storms at sea, and how</p>
<p>he worked to save his life and bring his men</p>
<p>back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,</p>
<p>they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god</p>
<p>kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus,</p>
<p>tell the old story for our modern times.</p>
<p>Find the beginning.”</p>
<p>― <b>The Odyssey</b></p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p><em> I’m dying, </em>you think to yourself.</p>
<p>Ha, ha, oh fuck that’s blood in your mouth and your arm is definitely broken. Fucking god. Holy shit.</p>
<p>Your head is kind of a blur. You are vaguely certain of one thing: you know who you are. You know your name. You know what you look like, though that particular stunning visage might be slightly more blood splattered than you generally go for.</p>
<p>You know that you’ve flirted with the idea of death before.</p>
<p>But you are also very sure that you don’t want to die of horrific maiming. You’re somewhat used to it, but you don’t love pain. Especially the pain of broken bones.</p>
<p>And holy fucking shit you are reasonably sure you have a broken bone. Maybe only a very slightly broken bone. But you stubbed your pinkie toe on your bathroom doorjam that one time, and it hurt like a <em> motherfucker, </em> and you were like <em> fuckin </em> jesus <em> that hurt </em> but didn’t follow up on the fact that <em> shooting pain </em>spidered up your leg and seared into your nerves every time it twitched, or got jostled, and later oh fucking yeah it was broken, it took like two months to heal and now your left pinkie toe doesn’t even bend right. Also you broke your arm that one time and your collarbone that other time. So yeah, you’re pretty sure you know what a broken bone feels like. Or at least a very, very stressed out bone.</p>
<p>You clutch your forearm with your good hand and your teeth grit hard against a rolling wave of pain. It creeps up your collar, cresting over the back of your skull and tingling into your temples. It settles behind your scrunched-shut eyes, dissipating into a low throb of agony.</p>
<p>You are lying in the dirt.</p>
<p>Dirt and wreckage. You’re not sure what the wreckage is <em> wait fuck no, </em>it’s for sure a type of ship.</p>
<p>If you were less keen on being connected to reality, you might say that the smooth steel and seamless panelling shredding into shrapnel and chunks in the dirt around you looks like a spaceship.</p>
<p>You’re not sure how you know that.</p>
<p>You are curled up on the dirt surrounded by the wreckage of a spaceship clutching your arm, and your bones (and you!!) are stressed. Blood is coating your teeth and making your mouth taste like metal, but you tongue your ragged cheek and <em> yup, you bit down pretty hard on that one. </em>At least you’re not internally bleeding. You lick iron off the enamel of your teeth, gagging just a little, a reflexive convulsion. You swallow it down.</p>
<p>And, as you gaze up through a haze of tears (reflexive!) and pain at the star strewn sky, you realize one thing: There are two moons.</p>
<p>One of the moons is green.</p>
<p>Very quietly, you try to piece together the fragments of your shattered self.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 1: HOT DIGGETY DOG</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>NOTE: This story will remain forever unfinished, but I have about 40k of writing and ideas to slap into chapters. I'll be posting it all! (There will be a rating change, and that change will be noted on specific chapters.) Each chapter will not only have proper content, but (on occasion) deleted scenes, summaries, and entirely disconnected chunks of prose. You have been warned!</p><p> </p><p>I took a little journey to the unknown<br/>and I come back changed, I can feel it in my bones</p><p>READER: =&gt; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZta5Anwd9U">[WAKE UP.]</a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You stagger to your feet.</p><p>That’s fast forwarding: It actually takes you a rather large amount of time to stagger to your feet. You take your sweet time.</p><p>Despite the nighttime sky, strewn with dim stars, your vision is bright and clear with what must be- moonlight? You look up, and-</p><p>Pink.</p><p>Green.</p><p>Huger than the largest harvest moon you ever remember seeing, yolk-yellow and fat in a starlit sky. There are <em> two </em> moons, and they’re massive, swollen and neon, both full and shining and pockmarked with dim, muted craters. They’re utterly unreal, just <em> there, </em> glowing in the heavens, dreamlike. You goggle at the sky for just a moment, gaping. It looks like a picture: Like an alien sky designed by an artist, rendered in vivid technicolor: Pretty, sure, but fake as hell. But no, this is - you’d pinch yourself, but hey, you have a broken arm, you can definitely feel <em> that </em>- real.</p><p>You think.</p><p>You tear your eyes away from the sky. On assessment, you are, hilariously, roughly twenty feet away from an alien freeway. This strikes you as very funny, somehow.</p><p>The skyline is reddish pink, like there’s a wildfire somewhere on the horizon. With a sense of disconnect, you observe:</p><p>You are on the border of a scrapyard and a field filled with dull, greenish-gray grass. (Maybe colored by moonlight? How does that even work? dammit you need remedial lessons on the physics of light you know <em> jack </em> shit) Half of it is dirt. The street, startlingly close, is illuminated and sleek-looking in some places; in others, it looks like a total dump. Potholes and cracked pavement(?) abound. Crevices and gashes in dim, blackish asphalt(?) riddle the streets, clear even from afar, and you have a feeling that an unwary walker could easily score a broken ankle (or two) from an unwitting stroll. Maybe this place (city, town, settlement, who <em> knows) </em>is abandoned?</p><p>But- wait, no.</p><p>Oddly shaped buildings cluster around those distant curbs, equally oddly-shaped windows panelling their dark sides. Some are lit. The clustering, dark continuation of those buildings obscure most of the reddish horizon and sprawling illumination of the road from view. From a distance - you start walking forward gingerly, careful of your screaming aches and pains - you can’t tell the material anything is made of. In the moonlight, everything looks strange: Like broken down lux. Like a blackened reflection of what you’re used to. Things that used to be tip-top shape, <em> optimized, </em>that are now very worn out and broken down because nobody gives a fuck. At least that’s the impression you get. You’re not entirely unfamiliar with places like this.</p><p>You reach the edge of the field.</p><p>You feel simultaneously very distant and extraordinarily present as you breathe in, out, each sense tuned in with startling immediacy. You have to be breathing air (air with oxygen in it and nothing toxic to your fragile lungs in its components) to be alive. You are alive right now. Your heart is beating very fast. You can feel it thrumming in your chest, your ears, your fingertips. Quietly, you are freaking out, but that freakout is being shoved down deep into your guts where it will apparently have to live for the next forever. That thought doesn’t help, so you try to stop thinking.</p><p>You sigh, deliberate, loud, and controlled through your nose, looking out on the rather machiavellian looking alien neighborhood. There is an attempt being made to be serene. The air is crisp, even pleasant. You stand, poised, on the border between sparse wilderness and the wreckage of your past; ahead of you, there is a totally alien environment. A <em> neighborhood, </em>which means civilization. Your arm really fucking hurts, but you get the feeling that it’d be worse if you weren’t buzzed on adrenaline right now. Your ribs feel itchy, so you reach over with your working hand to scratch, and-</p><p>You glance down, startled, and realize that you’re wearing clothes that you don’t remember putting on, or ever owning. A fitted black t-shirt, longsleeved - you check yourself out, surreptitiously, and yeah, not bad! (even with the singed sleeves) - and black pants that are 1. Comfortable and 2. Made of a material you can’t place. They’re stretchy and fitted, like leggings, but not as clinging, or as thin. Almost velvety, but with some of the integrity of denim.</p><p>You realize you’ve just spent more than thirty seconds checking yourself out on an alien planet and look up oh god there’s someone walking toward you.</p><p>Some… thing?</p><p>The urge to actually take a step back like a rabbit in a hunting movie translates into an aborted full body twitch, which you imagine makes you look pretty goddamn weird. Let’s be real: if the first thing that approaches you wants to kill you, you are not gonna be long for this world. You are not designed for survival in a harsh alien environment where everything wants to kill you instantly. Plus: the thing is coming closer and it looks like a totally sweet dude.</p><p>Sweet as in nice. A round face, shaggy black hair, humanoid(!!!!). You can see that it (he?) is bipedal, two arms and two legs, a head, hair, clothes, shoes(?). Not ridiculously huge- human sized, maybe even a little shorter than you, or possibly taller? It’s hard to tell. There’s also something <em> orange </em> on their head, and with another startled twitch you recognize <em> horns: </em>not like an elk or a narwhal or a rhinoceros, but oddly shaped, unpronged things, two in total, one jutting from each temple, just above the alien’s hairline. They’re graduated red-orange-yellow from base to tip, like candycorn but without the white, unsharp looking, and you can see them even from a distance: they’re the primary pop of color on him/it, bright and vivid. The rest of them are in shades of grayscale.</p><p>They (he??) is loping towards you with a purpose- not in a run (which is great because if an alien was running toward you you might bolt regardless of logic), but a pretty quick walk. A trot?</p><p>Okay, standout fact: This alien’s skin is <em> gray. </em></p><p>Gray like- gravel. Or silver, or granite. Under the alien moons, so maybe it’s not <em> really </em>gray, you think. And as he/they/it gets closer, you realize it’s speckled like granite, too- on the face, marked all over its cheeks like freckles, or spots on a toad, or a cat. Like camouflage.</p><p>The alien(!!) is dressed all in black (clothes!!!), with a nifty little gray vest over it all that looks, to be completely honest, like those marshmallow down-vests people wear. The ones that were in-fashion in the nineties. There’s a splash of red across its chest, and your very-quick <em> is that blood?? </em>thought gets thrown out the window when you realize that it’s a symbol (that still may be painted in blood, but hey it looks pretty symmetrical so if it’s painted in blood at least it’s been done in a neat hand), and the alien is waving at you.</p><p>Your unbroken arm twitches. You… you swallow. You wave back. Tentative.</p><p>The alien grins, picks up the pace.</p><p>It is still grinning at you as you wait awkwardly for it to walk/jog over: You are focusing very hard on it, and not on any pain or possible broken bones. It has a shaggy sort of haircut- the type every teenage boy has at fourteen, with a dark fall of bangs that don’t quite hide some <em> huge </em>and luminous eyes, like, wow. Not grossly so, but those eyes are big- noticeably above the human average, fringed with long black lashes, reflecting some of the moonlight, the whole bit of them reflective and shiny like a cat’s and glinting yellow in the dark and uhh staring straight at you and he’s like six feet away now, and stopping, and looking at you, and smiling.</p><p>Hi, you say.</p><p>The alien grins again, and actually does a little hop, excitedly. You don’t quite manage not to flinch back, instinctively, and its grin fades a little (it has pale teeth!! They look not super sharp and not meant for murder!!!).</p><p>You feel a little guilty about the flinch.</p><p>“Hi,” you say again, awkwardly, and your voice sounds like shit even to you; it cracks, and squeaks like a leaky and rusted faucet. You swallow, nervously. “What’s up?”</p><p>“(| What’s up! |)” The alien says cheerily.</p><p>He has the weirdest lilt at the beginning and end of what he says: A soft sussurating buildup, then a popped letter at the end. It ends up sounding more like <em> Wwwhhat’s u-P, </em>with a pop on the P. You have no clue what it reminds you of, but it is very strange. Also he is an alien. Who is speaking to you. You are being addressed.</p><p>You are the coolest fucking cucumber. The coolest cucumber to ever exist on an alien planet with a very fuzzy memory and no clue how it happened, at all, and a fractured arm that is sending tingling shots of pain up your spine and through your brainstem just to remind you ever so often that you are in mortal fucking peril. You can feel the cold sweat on the back of your neck. The fact that there is no way that this alien is speaking english does in fact cross your mind. Like many things that are happening right now that are alarming, you shove that fact right back down where it came from.</p><p>“-didn’t get a good look at you before I ran over here, sorry. |)” The alien is- frowning, you realize (it was talking and you <em> missed </em> it) and with his big ol’ eyes peeping out from behind his ‘90s skater boy haircut, he looks pretty goddamn morose. He also looks - in human equivalent - about thirteen, or twelve. Like, a <em> kid, </em> gangly and a bit chubby with baby fat <em> . </em> “(| I guess I thought you were a lusus… but you’re not a lusus at all! |)”</p><p>You convey with what you think is remarkable aplomb that you’re sorry if you accidentally fooled him(?). You’re not exactly sure what a ‘lusus’ is, but you think that you may be a different sort of creature than him, and presumably everyone(?) else living here.</p><p>As you speak, the rust sheds from your voice, and it smooths, more melodious, more fluid. (You’re not sure why, exactly, but it’s a sharp contrast from the way the boy sounds; sharper, sussurating, shellacked and pointed in turns. It’s not at the forefront of your mind, but it tickles the back of it.)</p><p>“(| Oh… |)” The gray alien looks put out, but he rallies. He doesn’t correct you on the ‘he,’ either, which means he goes by ‘he?’ You guess?</p><p>“(| I thought I’d never get to see someone like you! |)” the alien says, gaining speed and volume as he talks. “(| Someone the drones probably hate more than me, I mean! Drones would vaporize a hornless goof like you, no questions asked. More importantly, you’re not sure what a lusus is? Wow...” There’s a pitying cast to his face. “That’s pretty much the saddest thing I ever heard get said! And that’s coming from someone with a dead lusus. |)”</p><p>Wwwwwwhat the fuck.</p><p>You don’t really have time to unpack all that.</p><p>Your eyes are drawn again to the horns. Your new alien buddy (and you are erring on the side of friendliness, here, confidence is key) has... horns, sure, but now that you’re closer, you notice that they’re slick-looking and almost tubular, with rounded off ends and three blunted nubs crowning them. Tri-pronged, sure, but unsharp. There’s no way horns like that are made for killing.</p><p>Score.</p><p>You say to him that you don’t mean to say sad things, or anything that’s culturally ignorant at all, actually. You just got here, and you’re really confused, and you have some distressed bones and a (familiar) gnawing pain in your stomach. As if on cue, your stomach grumbles, then does its best imitation of a screaming baby bird.</p><p>Also you’re very sorry for his loss. Of his - you sound out the letters, and they taste odd, rounded, hissing and weighty all at once - “lusus.”</p><p>“(| ...Hungry? |)”</p><p>Abruptly your newfound alien friend is looking very suspicious.</p><p>He’s also holding something up near his face that looks remarkably colorful, in comparison to the rest of his monochrome getup. Something you didn’t notice before, focused as you were on a newfound alien being approaching you. Something that looks, you think in a burst of mental clarity, a hell of a lot like an alien hot dog.</p><p>You briefly wonder if you are in a coma, and if this is a fever dream, or some sort of fiction.</p><p>Your life can be strange at times, but this is Alice in Wonderland style bullshit. Is there going to be a blue caterpillar, some sort of multicolored smoke, and what passingly-unresembles-but-is-clearly-meant-to-be-drugs in your near future?</p><p>You take a moment to actively consider the idea that you could already be <em> on </em> some sort of drug trip, but no, you’ve never done any particularly strong psychedelics before. Nothing that would send you on a trip like this, at least, something so realistic that all your senses - smell, touch, hearing, sight - stay crystal clear. Drugs that do something like this don’t exist yet. You think.</p><p>Even <em> if </em> the alien hot dog has little centipede legs.</p><p>The alien is still looking at you suspiciously. He’s clutching the hotdog(?) up even closer to his chubby speckled cheek, like you might reach over and yank it out of his hands. You’re struck with a sort of vertigo, another round of <em> is this really happening? </em> skittering across your mental space, but you can feel your heart beating, loud and insistent, and you can see the stars and moons above and feel the nighttime air on your skin, feel odd texture of your new pants hugging your legs- you can <em> smell </em>something, too, like a mixture of dirt and metal and gasoline. Probably the wreckage of your spaceship.</p><p>Your <em> spaceship…? </em></p><p>Dazedly, your eyes focus on the alien. Oh. The blunt nails on the as-of-yet-unnamed alien’s gray hand are yellow-orange, you notice, just like his oblong horns are. Hm. The same material, maybe? What was it? Keratin?</p><p>They’re brutally short. He must bite them.</p><p>You blink. Refocus.</p><p>(Are you sure you’re not having a dream?)</p><p>“Don’t worry,” you tell him, as the world scratches and skips and refocuses into complete and utter clarity. Incidentally, you are very used to going without food! There’s no way you’d take anybody else's. It just isn’t your style to take things from other people. Especially not in a physical altercation sort of way. You are very physical-altercation averse.</p><p>“(| Oh, |)” the alien says, somewhat mollified. He blinks at you. (Good <em> lord </em> his eyes are big.) “(| Okay. I’m Diemen, by the way! Diemen Xicali. You’re definitely weird looking, but you <em> seem </em> nice… |)” He gives you a very, very considering look. “(| I still don’t trust you, though! |)”</p><p>While you actively choose to ignore the fact that Diemen has “die” in his name, you tell him that that’s probably fair. You’ve only just met, after all.</p><p>And you return your name, politely.</p><p>“(| Huh. Weird name! |)”</p><p>Either being rude is the norm, here, or nobody taught this alien boy any manners.</p><p>You ask this alien boy, amicably as possible, where exactly you are.</p><p>“(| We’re in Outglut! It’s a subgrub of Thrashthrust, |)” the alien boy <em>(Diemen) </em>says helpfully. “(| Near where my hive used to be. |)” And haha you have no idea what most of those words mean. Where his <em>hive</em> used to <em>be?</em> You laugh a little, nervously, and remind Diemen (in a vein of understating) that you’re new here. In fact, you just arrived. You’re sorry his… hive? Is gone? </p><p>(Hive, like a bee? Or a wasp?)</p><p>“(| Drones bombed it a while back. |)” He shrugs. (Your eyes catch on his eyeline as he blinks- his lashes are so long that they tangle at the ends, long and straight and very black, like a gazelle’s. They shift his <em> hair </em>as his eyes open, close, rapidly shutter, shunting it out of the way. His eyelids are in the same grayscale as the rest of his skin, too, from the glimpses you catch of them, and his yellow sclera peep out in contrast.) “(| It happens. |)”</p><p>Uhh. Drones? Bombed? Are you in a warzone?</p><p>(Also, again: Drones, like bees?)</p><p>There’s no fire in the sky, no rumbles of warmachines razing the earth, no pops of gunfire or wailing of sirens… but who’s to say alien war looks the same? The streets are torn up, and everything looks rundown, from your vantage point.</p><p>You decide that now is not the time to ask if the planet you have arrived on is in a state of constant, unceasing war.</p><p>“(| That’s how it goes around here. A little bombing, a little culling... |)” Diemen gives you a look of renewed, mild suspicion. Possibly, because the expression on your face has likely shifted from <em> generally alarmed </em> to <em> quite actively not trying to freak out at the mention of casual bombing. </em> Also possibly because you’re an alien with a broken limb. He clutches his hotdog closer to his chest, and you think quietly and somewhat hysterically to yourself: <em> He’s gonna smother his fancy hotdog to death if he’s not careful. </em> You might be losing it. “(| Well, if you <em> are </em>hungry… make sure you keep your lusus-looking fronds off my Delicacy! Sausages don’t grow on trees, you know, and I’ve been tricked out of two other Oblong Meat Products this week already! |)”</p><p>You don’t know how this conversation got so out of hand, so quickly.</p><p>(He says <em> Delicacy </em>like it has a capital letter in front of it. You can just hear the Emphasis.)</p><p>You just arrived via crashing into the ground, you clarify, waving an (unbroken) arm to gesture behind you. But you’re not at the point of theft, you say. Scrounging, for sure. You wouldn’t say no to a free meal, you admit, the teeniest, tiniest bit of your freakout leaking into your voice. But you would never take something from someone else! Especially not someone who just had their house(??) blown up.</p><p>A prickling of unease tells you not to take your eyes off Diemen. He seems like a sweet kid, but you’re still mostly in an ever-increasing panic mode. And your other (unwaving) arm is broken. And he’s still an alien. And he’s possibly a soldier, you guess, or at the very least someone worried about an alien thief stealing his ridiculously colored and nicknamed hotdog from his gray alien hands? Blunt horns and teeth and nails notwithstanding. People can get very defensive over food, and horn-bluntness or not, you are <em> far </em>squishier than any creature with horns.</p><p>“(| You might think I’m an easy mark due to my blood color,” Diemen mumbles, shifting, baring his teeth - you tense - not sharp, not sharp! “-but I have some dignity, at least! |)”</p><p>Again, you don’t have the time to unpack, like, literally any of that.</p><p>Uh.</p><p>
  <em> Blood color? </em>
</p><p>That’s the thought that rises to the surface and forefront of your mind, sifting through silt and murky water. It catches like fabric on a sharp corner, snagging and unspooling the teeniest, tiniest conversational thread. <em> Blood </em>color?</p><p>You open your mouth, and-</p><p>And-</p><p>And...</p><p>And it strikes you, through your haze of pain and confusion and discomfit and not-insignificant panic, that this boy - bared teeth and weird alien hair and all (it’s black but <em> weird, </em>shiny like an oilslick in a parking lot puddle but the only undertones you can see are red), stance squared, snub nose twitching like a rabbit’s - looks a little sad.</p><p>And afraid- not cruel or mean, but just. Scared.</p><p>Scared.</p><p>You’ve seen that look on people’s faces before.</p><p>He’s just a <em> kid. </em></p><p>(You close your mouth.)</p><p>You do some mental arithmetic and create an order list, organized by priority.</p><p>You take a deep, calming breath.</p><p>And you reassure Diemen, as kindly as you can, that you don’t want to steal anything from him.</p><p>(It helps that he is shorter than you, and friendly, with no murder-teeth or claws to speak of. Also you do not generally make a habit of stealing shit off someone’s person.</p><p>Like, really, you do not generally make a habit of stealing shit. Especially not right from someone’s hands, c’mon. And <em> especially </em>not from alien-strangers you’re trying to make a good impression on.)</p><p>You’re in the business of making friends, not enemies. Plus, blood color(?) doesn’t matter in the least to you, you tell him.</p><p>Diemen stops looking afraid right the fuck immediately and starts looking surprised, and maybe impressed. His eyebrows have shot up to his hairline, though the only reason you can spot that because his ears wiggle (uh are those pointed ears, like elves and shit, like just a little but still) and his hair puffs out even more, like a domestic cat trying to look bigger or a wren fluffing its feathers. That, and the fact that his eyes go even huger, from what you see of them. He clutches even tighter at his hot dog (you hate this narrative, suddenly) and hunches a little closer to you, interestingly enough, glancing around, furtive and cagey. You make an active effort not to lean backward. What a shift in mood!</p><p>“(| You shouldn’t say stuff like that around here! |)” Diemen says. He is attempting to warn you(?), you can tell (probably), but he sounds nervous. He’s close enough - barely a foot away - that you can smell him, a metallic tang layered over the vaguely gross smell of someone who hasn’t had the chance to wash up for several days. Or longer. “(| The drones are always patrolling here. Alien rusty or not, you’ll still get culled, looking and talking like that. |)”</p><p>Rusty?</p><p>Diemen gives you a strange look, peering through his (you now realize, lank) bangs. “(| Rustblood. |)”</p><p>You thought everyone’s blood is a sort of rust-ish color, generally speaking? Although the shade of red varies depending on the artery it comes from, or whatever? Something-something hemoglobin? You know a bit of science-y trivia.</p><p>Diemen stares at you. “(| Wow, you really must be an alien. Don’t you have a hemospectrum on whatever planet you’re from? |)”</p><p>“Hemo like <em> blood?” </em> you ask him. And spectrum as in… a range, of variance?</p><p>Diemen laughs. It’s a bright, somewhat rusty sound- no, maybe you’re just saying that because of the term he used. <em> Rust… </em></p><p>Is there a Tarnish? Or Silver? Or Verdigris, like copper.</p><p>“(| Yeah! I’m a Rustblood. Burgundyblood, I guess, but nobody says that. How can I sum up the hemospectrum...? |)” Diemen pauses, and your attention is drawn back to him: He just looks… so <em> alien. </em> Gray skin and red-orange-yellow horns and all. And up close, yeah, he <em> is </em>shorter than you. By, like, an inch.</p><p>He looks somewhat uncertain, too. He peers intently at your face (lusus-looking visage? whatever that means) and seems to... steel himself.</p><p>“(| Lifespan and some other stuff gets longer, the higher you go up, |)” Diemen says, waving his non-hotdog hand around for emphasis, and his hair is still fluffed: still ridiculously bird-looking. Wow, what a physiological response. “(| The castes have different traits, like how Mustardbloods - that is, uh, Goldbloods - have psionics, and Indigos are pretty much all super strong. And seadwellers live basically forever, and have gills, and fins. It’s kinda crazy and seems unfair- the lifespan, I mean… but that’s just how it is. |)”</p><p>He blinks at you again, slow and ponderous. You remember again, what with his skater-boy hair and puffy vest, how young he is. Probably? How young he <em> looks, </em> at least. Whatever that scale of youngness is measured in. For all you know, he could be quadruple your age, but young in alien years. And he’s apparently homeless, you guess. And lusus-less. <em> What is a kid this young doing trotting around on his own, chatting up random aliens, </em> you think, a burst of worry spiking through you. You guess his “lusus” - who died - might’ve been his… parent? Oh, man.</p><p>“(| I’d be jealous of them, but I think I’m not? Seadwellers, I mean. I’m almost grateful I don’t have very long to make it in this world. I don’t know what I’d do if I had longer, |)” Diemen rambles on.</p><p>Uh, whoah. Whoah. Wait. Fuckin. Sad alert? You realize abruptly that you’ve been absorbing what Diemen’s been saying with half and ear and it’s all <em> wild, </em>shit about psi-something (ESP?? oh god you hope he’s kidding) and gills and lifespans, the latter of which you heard a bit more of.</p><p>You are so <em> so </em> fucking curious about the <em> hemospectrum, </em> about ‘seadwellers’ (oh god, Diemen said his lifespan was shorter? what’s an alien ‘short’ lifespan? longer than yours? shorter?), what a lusus even <em> is </em>and what psi-somethings are and what ‘super strong’ means, in context, but Diemen went on a little ramble and now he’s looking a bit put out. You open your mouth to speak, but Diemen is blasting onward at the speed of light. Oh no.</p><p>“(| I forage for Tasty Things when I can, |)” Diemen mumbles, gesticulating with his hot dog - you shuffle backward, just a bit - “(| and I’ve gotten pretty good at it… talking people into giving me Meat Products, I mean… |)”</p><p>You gather, silently, that Tasty Things(?) and Meat Products are terms referring to the playdough-lookin’ hotdog with bug legs he’s carrying. You open your mouth to-</p><p>“(| Maybe I can make it happen? |)” To your ever-rising alarm, Diemen sniffles. “(| My life isn’t that long… I could skip the Ordeals - can’t test who you can’t find! - and live out the rest of my life on this planet without getting caught… like, hiding in alleys and sewers, scraping together just enough Succulent Proteins to keep myself going… |)”</p><p>You open your mouth-</p><p>“(| I mean, my Lusus is gone, sure! I know he’d want me to keep living. We used to eat Savory Bunned Delights together, actually… how did we start talking about my hot dog? Things were going so well! People always try to take them, since I’m just a Rustblood and I don’t have a lusus or a hive anymore… Why did I even mention it? |)”</p><p>You-</p><p>“(| I guess I keep wrangling Hot Dogs as a way to cover up the pain? Of my lusus dying, I mean- |)”</p><p>You tell Diemen, rather more forcefully than intended due to your <em> being verbally steamrolled for five consecutive minutes, </em> that a life like that sounds very hard, and you’re sincerely sorry for the way his planet has treated him.</p><p>Diemen looks at you. He takes a raspy breath, inhales to speak, and bursts into tears.</p><p>“Oh my god,” you say. It just slips out.</p><p>Oh god. The kid is crying. Your hands flutter (the good one does), and you’re sure your panic is showing on your face like a neon billboard, because <em> oh fuck you made a kid cry. </em>Oh no. You are so sorry.</p><p>“I- I didn’t mean to- oh, Diemen, I’m sorry.”</p><p>(His name sounds <em> weird </em>coming out of your mouth. Half-unnatural, but it settles, and a moment later, you’re sure you imagined the ill fit.)</p><p>You finish up sounding miserable and stop talking, because the more you said words the harder he kept crying, and now he’s sobbing big fat red-tinted tears that streak down his cheeks, soaking into the collar of his shirt.</p><p>It doesn’t matter that Diemen’s an alien kid who looks like he’s crying blood. He’s a <em> kid. </em></p><p>He just looks- so miserable, and alone, and he’s just- he’s hugging himself. Not a full arm wraparound, or anything, but a <em> clutching the elbows and swaying with the force of it </em>sorta thing, a secondary symptom of isolation and misery, and you are very familiar with it. He’s not crying like a movie: Not stoic silence, or caricatures of grief, but honest hiccuping sobs, ugly and miserable.</p><p>It’s not even a choice you have to consciously make.</p><p>You hug the alien.</p><p>You hug <em> Diemen. </em></p><p>He sobs into your collar. You wrap your working arm around him gently, so very gently- even what you’re doing right now jostles your broken arm at your side, and it hurts <em> so fucking much </em> that you bite <em> through </em> your lip to keep from cursing loudly. The salty tang of iron blood fills your mouth. Diemen doesn’t wrap his arms around you back (thankfully, again, for your bruised ribs); he leans into you hard, but in a way that puts most of the weight on your right shoulder. He sure is crying up a storm. You have no idea where he’s storing his hot dog but you really hope it isn’t smushed up to your chest and smearing mustard against your shirt, or anything, not that that matters at all- you’re murmuring <em> it’s okay, </em> and <em> I’m here </em> and <em> I’m sorry </em>’s into Diemen’s greasy hair while he does his best to sob out all his sorrows into you.</p><p><em> How the fuck did this happen, </em> you think distantly. The rest of you is focused outward, making quiet consoling noises to the alien crying into your shirt.</p><p>You’re sure you must be a spectacle. An alien and a- what did he call himself? A <em> rustblood, </em>holding onto you as he cries, and cries, and cries. Over his homelesness and death.</p><p>(You’re not sure when exactly you started thinking of yourself as an alien.)</p><p>Eventually, it ends.</p><p>Diemen pulls back, face puffy and red, inflamed and tearstained. His eyes are mostly obscured by his bangs, from your angle, you can see through the curtain of his hair and tell that they’ve gone bloodshot- tiny, spidering dark red capillaries vein through the yellow-gold of his sclera. And, this close, you can easily see that his tears are tinted <em> deep </em> red, same as the symbol on his shirt: perhaps due to his “blood color?” All academics aside, it makes him look rather frightening- like all those morbid paintings of Jesus on the cross with the stigmata, crying tears of blood. Not that you’re too familiar with those.</p><p>“I,” you start to say, and as you step back to disengage your broken arm spasms and you are in <em> agony. </em></p><p>You make a noise like a yelp and a scream combined. Diemen flinches back, baring his teeth, fingers curling (bitten nails not much for claws) and hair fluffing, but you are not paying attention because you are falling.</p><p>Your feet bumble due to excruciating pain and you fall, fall, fall. Your ass hits the ground <em> hard, </em> and you make another noise but even over that you hear the <em> squish. </em></p><p>More importantly, you feel something being squashed under you.</p><p>Oh fuck, you mumble. <em> Please tell me that wasn’t Diemen’s hot dog. </em></p><p>Diemen is still spooked. He looks too spooked to offer you a hand up, so you stagger to your feet, careful and wobbly. You crane your neck looking over your shoulder and of course, because god hates you, the sad remains of Diemen’s alien play-dough-lookin’ hotdog are crushed into the dirt and grass.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>Oh no. Didn’t he say he eats hot dogs as a way to feel closer with his dead lusus-parent? Oh noooo.</p><hr/><p>SUMMARIZING:</p><p>[basic plot - shoulder pat first. Some Exposition dialogue. Diemen starts crying in earnest. Hug. hotdog slap. Noise. Drones. Running. Flee to sewer. Diemen says it’s safe there, since even lowblood heat is undetectable through layers of stone. MC brings up Hotdog Quest. Diemen asks if you’re Sure there’s hotdogs down here. You say Absolutely. (it is in fact just to keep up morale.) slog through sewers. Diemen breakdown. Reassurance. Friendship. Drone follows. Diemen falls, heroic lunge and save. Run through tunnel, find spinny door, frantically open (with wet hands) and sprint in, draggin diemen behind, slam metal door shut. Is cold. find hotdogs. Profit. Unbelievable surprise. Crying laughter, then just crying, then embracing (even though diemen is fucking covered in sludge and mc’s arm is still broken.)</p><hr/><p>DELETED SCENE:</p><p>Your first urge is to go in for a hug. You squash it ruthlessly! You don’t know this alien. You are a very physically affectionate person, though, and he looks so sad…</p><p>You reach out for a friendly, affectionate pat on the shoulder.</p><p>Your broken(?) forearm spasms and you literally slap the hot dog out of his hand.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Generalized Triggers (Present Throughout All or Most Chapters): Graphic Depiction of Violence, Death (Non-Major Character), Discussion of Mental Illness, (Alternian) Animal Death, Blood, Excessive Use Of Profanity, <em>Generalized Mature Content,</em> and Alternian Society In General.</p>
<p>Chapter Triggers: None excepting Generalized Triggers.</p>
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<p>Title is an homage to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/286775">this fic.</a></p>
<p>Strap in, folks.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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